It's no wonder we felt so at home in Munich - it's the only other city in the world (aside from Milwaukee) where you can spend twelve hours in a bar drinking beer and not be judged for it. We didn't actually spend twelve hours drinking beer, but we did spend the entire day exploring the city and learning about its history.
The first thing we saw was the New Town Hall, which, ironically, is older than the Old Town Hall (the Old Town Hall had to be rebuilt after it was completely destroyed in World War II). On the New Town Hall is the Glockenspiel, which according to our tour guide Liz is the number two most overrated tourist attraction in Europe (in Prague they told us the astronomical clock was number two and the Glockenspiel was number one). The top part of the clock depicts a wedding between an Austrian princess and a Bavarian prince. There was even a joust! The bottom part depicts the dance that the barrel-makers did to celebrate the end of the Black Plague. In the middle was a guy who did a special dance called the "party thrust." According to Liz, "His job was to go around thrusting in your children's faces!"
Then we walked to a cathedral called Frauenkirche which is said to have been built by the devil. The legend says that the devil was passing through Munich when he came across a church that was in the process of being built. He walked in through the front door, noticed that there was not very much light coming into the church, and decided that he wanted this to be a church dedicated to his own worship. He found the architect and offered him a deal - if the architect didn't put any more windows in the church, he would have his helpers come down and the building would be finished in 20 years. The architect accepted, and every night the devil's helpers would come down and work on the church.
Sure enough, in 2o years' time, the church was finished, and the devil returned to inspect his new place of worship. However, this time he came in through the side door, and saw that there was light flooding the inside. He sought out the architect and asked what was going on. The architect replied that the devil had instructed him not to put any
more windows in the building, and when the devil had originally come through the front door, the pillars on the inside had blocked all the light. Realizing that he had been tricked, the devil became furious and stomped his foot so hard that it left a mark in the floor of the church. It is said that the reason the corner on which the church is located is so windy is because the devil runs around and around the church, causing mayhem because he is still furious.
After the devil's church, we walked to another cathedral that had been reconstructed after World War II. One of the crosses on top of the church was facing the wrong way, and the explanation as to why is called "The Beer Miracle." The story goes that one night there was a terrible thunderstorm, with torrential downpours and severe winds. The cross was blown right off of the tower, and no one who worked at the church wanted to climb up to put it back in place. They went searching for someone who was brave enough to do it, and they found someone in a beer hall who was just drunk enough to attempt the task. He climbed up the tower, cross in one hand, his beer in the other, and put the cross back in its place. He was so excited, though, that he accidentally dropped his beer. The mug fell all the way to the street below, but the glass amazingly did not break - and this is the Beer Miracle!
On the other side of this church is a wall which contains a cannonball from the 30 Years' War. At the start of World War II, the citizens of Munich knew that the city would probably be heavily bombed, and that most of the buildings would be destroyed. They wanted to be able to rebuild the city exactly as it was, and so they went around taking pictures of every last building they could see. After the war, as the church was being rebuilt, a man who lived nearby was walking down the street and found the cannonball sitting on the side of the road. He took it home, and came back to the people who were rebuilding the church with a picture of the church that he had taken from before the war and said, "I have a cannonball that goes in that wall, and I have the picture to prove it!" This is the main reason that Munich has such a traditional feel to it - its citizens have worked very hard to rebuild the city as it was before the war.
After talking about the rebuilding of the city, we walked down to the market (which was really busy because it was the day before Easter) where Katrina and I actually got "lost" from the group. We weren't actually lost, we had just started walking in the wrong direction, and Meredith was watching us panic the entire time. What a great friend. (Love you, Meredith!) In the middle of the market they have a giant beer garden which is the only beer garden in Munich to serve all the different brews from the city. We also learned that the airport has their own beer garden where they serve "Airport Beer."
Keeping with the subject of beer, we went to the Hofbrauhaus, which is the most famous beer hall in the world. In the Hofbrauhaus and in other beer halls across Germany and Austria, there are special reserved tables for people called the
Stammtisch. These
Stammtisch are special members of the beer halls who can actually kick people out of their seats, which would probably come in very handy on a Saturday night in Munich. To attain this membership, one would have to drink in a beer hall three nights a week for fifteen years!
It's HUGE - there are four different rooms inside and an even bigger beer garden outside. It was founded in 1589 by the Duke of Bavaria, Wilhelm V. It has been a part of different aspects of Munich's history since then. For example, when there was a fire in the Opera House, the citizens of Munich made a human chain from the Haufbrauhaus to the Opera House. Their plan was to pass barrels of beer down the line and use the beer to put out the fire. However, they liked beer just a little too much and by the time the barrel reached the fire, it was empty because people had been drinking the beer. They wound up throwing empty wooden crates onto the fire, which of course made it worse, and the whole Opera House had to be rebuilt.
After hearing all these charming stories about the history of Munich, the tour took a more serious turn. Our next stop was an important place in Nazi history. When Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party came to power in Munich, they put up a plaque in memory of 20 Nazis that had lost their lives during the Beer Hall Putsch on November 9th, 1923 (in reality, only 15 were killed, but it was just another lie that was told to the citizens by the SS). Citizens were required to give the Nazi solute whenever they passed the plaque to show their respect for Hitler and the National Socialist Party. Those who refused to give the solute were either severely beaten or arrested on the spot and sent to Dachau or a similar place.
The majority of people living in Munich at the time did not support or respect Hitler and the Nazis, and to avoid having to give the solute, they would walk down an alley that came right before the plaque. It eventually became known as "Shirker's Alley," and in memorial of those citizens who passively resisted the Nazis, there is a line of gold stones running down the middle of the alley.
Most memorials to the period during the Nazi regime are subtle things like the gold stones, or the mark where the plaque used to be. This mark could easily be sandblasted off, but the citizens of Munich feel as though that would be a way of denying that this tragic history never happened. And instead of thrusting the history in the faces of all who visit and live in Munich, they choose to keep subtle reminders that will serve as an ever-present memory of the fact that something terrible happened. It's also a way of keeping the memory alive, so that future generations make sure nothing so tragic every happens again.
When the tour was over, we decided to get a beer at the Hofbrauhaus. We had so much fun there - it was packed and the beer was great. There was even a live band playing traditional German music! Katrina and I took a picture of us kidding one of the
Stammtisch on the cheek (although the picture didn't turn out perfectly) and it was exciting to be able to have a beer in the most famous beer hall in the world.
